Thank You, Thank You.

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For the tender mercies.

For the grit and gristle.

For the nights we lay awake. The plain blue sky. Cold, clean water in a tin cup and the taste of iron and moss. For tragedy averted, and for tragedy. For our thick-headedness. For the glimpses of holy things and the small bell that rings in the center of our souls and the way light falls and rain. For the sound of surf on a desolate shore. For family and for loneliness and skinned knees and the way you break us and break us and break us without ceasing.

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Things to Make and Do

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We are having everyone for Thanksgiving this year.

Yay!

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This is what our kitchen looks like. Our 1951 O’Keefe and Merrit takes
center stage. I love that bad dog about as much as I have ever loved
a physical thing. I have been elbow deep in its guts and I have taken
its temperature and I have washed its dirty hind-end and coaxed out
the brilliant blue/green flames froma clogged burner.

Let me tell you, you can do major surgery on that big bad
body with little or no fear.

Cast iron. Porcelain. The Grillevator.

Ah, yes.

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A couple of weeks ago I stole the graphics from Nikki McClure and
painted our fridge. (Hey, I sent her an email asking permission and
even showed her a photograph, but nothing back from her yet….).

Anyway.

I like it wicked bad.

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A guy at work I like sat with me in my office for an hour
and let me go on and on about my kid. He just listened
and let me rant and rave.

He’s a good guy.

The kind I thought there were a lot of before I got wise.

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I love and I love and that’s an old story.

Still, I love.

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Shit, I probably love you.

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One thing I do, is I love the little nest my wife and I have cobbled
together out of loveand spit and odd taste and a hundred bucks.

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I’m going down swinging.

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Love in the time of cholera

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This is a photograph of our hallway.

We went and watched “The Darjeeling Limited” and then
we came home and painted our hallway in our own interpretation
of the Darjeeling Limited train.

We love it wicked bad.

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One of the things I try to do is be a good father.
I am not so good at that.
I am suck ass at that.

I am a suck ass father.

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That in no way keeps me from trying….

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Another thing is, I love my little bitty life.
I love my wife like some kind of gigantic firework display of love.

You can take that to the bank.

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This week I did a polygraph on a dad who the mom thought
was touching the kid in a bad way. Or she was making a fight for
the kid and didn’t care what she said.

The dad passed the test.

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And I did a rapist who didn’t pass the test.

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I do something every day.

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I think about small things mostly. I think about the way light falls on the roses in our garden. I think about how light falls on the small and unforgiven things in my life. I think about my shortcomings. I think about the way I move in the world and all of my own lies.

I would find a way to stop them.

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I have put down roots in a place. I have let the crows come home to roost. I have stewed in the juice of my own concocting.

I am hoist on my own petard.

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Despite my many limitations, I am awash in the love of this world.

There is a beauty beyond all reckoning, and it is there all around us at every moment.

Give thanks, give thanks, give thanks.

Too soon you will be dead.

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